February 21, 2008

The Wages of Consumerism

The crude commercialism of America, its materializing spirit, its indifference to the poetical side of things, and its lack of imagination and of high unattainable ideals....

--Oscar Wilde, who liked Americans, in "The Decay of Lying" (1889), featuring George Washington.

WAC? takes back what it said some time ago about Western lawyers having no capacity for original thought. Well, not really, but we do take note of the beloved 1% exception. See at his Simple Justice a thoughtful piece by NYC trial lawyer-pundit Scott Greenfield entitled "The Measure of Prosperity, And Why People Steal", inspired in part by a recent NYT op-ed piece by Michael Cox and Richard Alm called "You Are What You Spend". They ask: does measuring prosperity by spending--rather than by earnings--make more sense? Scott responds.